


all the rest of my crimes don't come close

by LinguisticJubilee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:47:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguisticJubilee/pseuds/LinguisticJubilee
Summary: “So,” Matt coughs. “I don’t quite know how to give a ghost the shovel talk, but I’m prepared to do it.”***Or, the one where Adam is onlymostlydead.





	all the rest of my crimes don't come close

Adam used to have nightmares about living forever.

He would walk through a cemetery, every gravestone bearing a familiar name.  As he’d walk, the people buried would get younger and younger _–_ his sister, his students, his sister’s kids, his sister’s grandkids _–_ bodies of people not even born yet interned six feet below his feet.  No matter how fast he ran or where he turned, headstones surrounded him, condemning him with their towering dignity. _You belong here,_ they whispered after him.  _Why should you stand when others fall?_

When he’d wake up, drenched in a cold sweat, the first thing he’d do was check his phone for the date.  And even as he’d sit back in relief, a voice in his head would remind him that although the visions were imagined, the horror was real.

A side effect, he supposed, of signing up to be a widower before he’d hit thirty.

He and Takashi were so young when they first met.  Filled with the unearned bravado all kids have before their frontal lobes close, they had thought if they laughed enough and smiled enough they’d be able to beat back whatever monsters got in their way.   Takashi had believed that right up until it killed him.

Adam, for his part, had never actually bothered to plan for life after Shiro.  He had thrown all his energy, every last ounce of his spirit, into living with Shiro _–_ it’s why it had cut him so devastatingly when Shiro was willing to throw that life away for one more rocket launch into space.  In that moment, watching Shiro’s jaw set as he committed himself to Kerberos, Adam had realized that Takashi Shirogane intended to kill himself before the disease could do the job.  And so, out of self-preservation more than anything else, Adam had walked away.

Adam needed to learn how to live without Takashi.  For three years, he almost succeeded.

Which makes it so _fucking_ ironic when he comes back as a ghost.

***

When Admiral Sanda gives the order for the squadron to attack the Galra, Adam knows he’s going to die.

And it’s okay.  The Garrison had stopped being a peace-keeping and exploratory force months ago, when Sam Holt had returned out of the blue _– literally_ _–_ in an alien spaceship.  They are at war.  Sam may be optimistic to a fault, but Adam teaches strategy and knows a losing battle when he sees one.  Adam flies today, and because of that one of his students doesn’t have to.   For every second Adam can keep the Galra forces occupied, for every ounce of damage he can inflict, it means protection for someone down below.  Should Shiro somehow survive both murderous aliens and his own traitorous immune system to come back to Earth, Adam thinks he’d understand.

Adam gives the fight everything he’s got, but in the end, like everything else in his life, it’s just not good enough.  A bolt of energy rips his aft wing apart and sends him careening, his whole body feeling like it’s burning in flame.  Reflexively, he tries to right the ship even though he knows it’s no use, and a second before he crashes into a Galra ship he thinks, _Takashi, I love you._

***

The voices sound muffled, as though they’re bubbling up from underwater.  He lets them waft over him for a moment, content to float in nothingness.  For once, his head doesn’t ache and his muscles aren’t sore.  His body had gotten so used to living with pain that he’d forgotten what it felt like to live without it. 

Then awareness slams into him, like Descartes theorized: _I think, therefore I am._   He is alive.  Shock sends the voices into focus.

_You broke the healing pod._

_It was already broken. I was trying to fix it._

Adam recognizes the second voice.  In it, he can hear kind eyes that crinkle at the edges, a raised eyebrow, a gentle laugh.  _Sam_ , he thinks, and knows it’s true.

_Fix it?_

_The healing pod is our highest priority,_ Sam says.  _The salvage crew found quintessence –_

_From a Galra wreck.  You said it yourself, the likelihood of compatible technologies is slim._

_Resources are too low, we had to try!_

Quintessence.  Galra.  Sam.  The words jog his memory.  He is Adam.  He is a teacher.  They are fighting a war.  Adam died in that war, and Shiro –

Sparks flash white-hot all around.  Takashi Shirogane is not dead.  Energy pulses through Adam, racing with the power of that truth.  

When the dust settles, Adam can see.  Sam Holt and Iverson lift themselves off the floor.  “Oh good,” Iverson says, coughing.  “Now you really broke it.”

 _What the hell,_ Adam tries to say, but he can’t.  He doesn’t have a body.

“That crystal was far too concentrated,” Sam says, frowning at a screen readout.  “It shouldn’t have had that much power.”

“So you didn’t even bother measuring it before hooking it up to the healing pod?”

“No, I mean, it _couldn’t_ have had that much power.  The crystalline structure simply cannot hold enough quintessence to create an energy surge like that.”

“So…where did the extra power come from?”

 _Me,_ Adam realizes.  _The extra power is me._

***

Adam lives inside the healing pod.  Or, perhaps more accurately, Adam lives inside the energy living in the healing pod.

Sam isn’t wrong when he says the healing pod is broken.  It lacks the power necessary to fully charge its circuitry, perform the high-intensity functions it was designed for.  But it still holds reserves, quintessence humming quietly deep within it.  Enough to prevent it from withering into a lifeless hulk of metal.  Enough to save Adam.

Adam knows this, the way the previous him would have known that his eyes were closed or his fingers were pointed.  He used to scoff quietly when Sam would get drunk and start spouting off about how magic and science were the same thing, two different instruments playing the same tune.  It’s so obvious now; why couldn’t Adam see it before?

The healing pod is stored with a bunch of other non-functional space junk in an overstuffed workroom Sam keeps for fun, because he’s the type of madman who unwinds from retrofitting alien tech to win a space war by retrofitting alien tech to win a space war.  

Once the fallout from the Galra battle settles down, Sam returns to take another stab at repairing the healing pod.  He scans the healing pod with his tablet, and Adam can feel the information bounce back and forth between them.  Once he realizes this, it’s no trouble at all to hitch a ride on the signal, and Adam squeezes himself into the tablet’s circuitry.

Unlike the healing pod’s dormant energy reserves, the tablet teems with power. Electricity pings feverishly from one corner to another, calculating and communicating at gigabytes per second.  Adam can read it all.  It fizzes through him like joy mixed with anticipation.  Like the jolt that goes through your heart when your boyfriend gets down on one knee.

When Sam packs up and leaves the workroom, Adam leaves with him.  The tablet is small, just a fraction of the processing power a full computer would have, but it’s connected to the rest of the Garrison by a spider web of information flying invisibly through the air.  An email lands in Sam’s tablet, and Adam reads it before Sam even taps it open.  Progress on the Atlas has stalled, and the engineers can’t figure out why.

Sam hurries to the construction bay.  Veronica debriefs him, explaining that the particle cannons keep failing on start-up.  Adam ignores them, focusing instead on the Atlas itself.  Adam can tell there’s nothing wrong with the particle cannons.  The problem lies in the ignition.  There’s an infinitesimal crack in a wire, preventing electricity from traveling across it.  Quintessence pools up in the start-up mechanisms, but with nowhere to go it boils over in frustration and arcs out into the air surrounding it.  Depleted, the cannons whirr to a stop.

Sam and Veronica will find the crack eventually, but not until they take apart the Atlas and examine it piece by piece.  Adam reaches out experimentally, and takes a pinch of his own energy and closes the crack.

The particle cannons roar to life.  Sam and Veronica look at each other and grin in surprised relief.

***

Adam flits between the wires of the Garrison, marveling in the interconnectedness of his hidden technological world.  The Garrison engineers still struggle with syncing Altean and Galran and Earth technology, but Adam can zip seamlessly between them.  Deep inside, on the smallest scale, they’re all the same.

Adam has never felt more connected to the world before.  He has never felt more alone.

He tries sending an email to Sam.  _Dear Commander Holt, This is Lieutenant Wiesenthal.  I’m alive inside your computers.  Please get me out._ It doesn’t work.  The message always comes out garbled, a series of incomprehensible characters that makes Sam purge the Garrison computers in case of a malicious virus.  Another time Adam fails to create a message at all, and the tablet starts smoking dangerously.  After several attempts at sending a signal through computers, radios, and (in one desperate attempt) lightbulbs, it would appear that Adam is truly lost.  Just as he has gained the ability to understand the universe through energy, he has lost the ability to communicate with the human world.   It’s like he’s one step out of phase with the everyone else in the Garrison, like there’s a sheer curtain separating him from his old life.

It’s panic-inducing, the frustration.  He eavesdrops on meetings he should be participating in, powerless to do anything as his former leaders make wrong decisions.  Any loyalty he used to feel for his commanding officers disappeared when they ordered him to his death.   The old Adam was a soldier; this new one belongs nowhere, to no one.

Adam is hanging out in the circuits of the conference room viewscreen, not really paying attention to the heated argument until somebody says _Voltron._

“Voltron?” Sanda scoffs.  “You want to hinge all our hopes on five delinquent teenagers?”

“My daughter is a Paladin of Voltron,” Sam says sharply.

“Yes, she is.  And lest we forget, she only came to be in that position through an elaborate game of deception. This is your Voltron: a liar, a drop-out, two runaways, a recklessly suicidal commander, and an alien child. And that’s who we’re supposed to trust will just...come back?”

Adam’s rage boils. Energy surges, threatening to overload the viewscreen’s circuits.  He has never wanted to be corporeal more than at that moment, just so he could flip the Admiral off.

And suddenly, he is.  A ghostly hand stretches from the viewscreen, middle finger extended.   Adam, in shock, raises the other fingers slowly, then closes them into a fist.

It was one of Sam’s favorite sayings: we are all quintessence.  There is no difference between the quintessence whirling its way through technology and the quintessence that sparks inside each and every living being.  Adam, if he is anything, is quintessence.  He concentrates, moving the fingers of the hand, focusing on every spark of quintessence that makes up _him_.

He’s standing.  Adam is standing in front of the viewscreen, wearing his uniform grays, whole and intact.  “Sam,” he says excitedly, and can feel his throat working – he actually speaks it, not merely thinks it.

Sam doesn’t react.  Everyone continues arguing heatedly, oblivious to the man who sprung fully-formed from the television in front of them.

 “Hey!” He yells, at the top of his lungs, but still no one so much as flinches.  Adam jumps up and down, but still nothing.  “Please,” he says desperately.  “I’m here.  I’m right here.”

He walks over to Sam and tries to place a hand on his shoulder, but Adam passes right through.  All Adam feels is a slight tingle, like static shock, and he wonders if Sam felt the same.

He tries everything.  He tries to flip a chair over.  He tries to punch Iverson.  He bends down to Sam’s coffee mug and tries to take a slurp.  He passes right through everything, like the physical world is merely a hologram.

“Come _on!”_ He cries out, slamming his palms down on the table.  They connect, sending a jolt through the table that rattles the coffee mugs.  He feels lightheaded, and when he blinks he’s back, floating in a wave of quintessence, incorporeal.

 _Okay,_ he thinks, still dizzy. _Cool cool cool._

He calls it _astral-projecting_ , which would be embarrassing if anyone were around to hear it.  It’s a word Adam picked up from that time Matt got super into ouija boards and tarot (a phase that thankfully ended when Shiro’s left palm and right palm showed such drastically different futures that Matt had a crying fit and swore off the occult forever).

It costs Adam something, to walk around in three-dimensional space like he’s still human.  When he does it for too long, he starts feeling weaker and weaker until he returns to Altean tech and bathes in quintessence to...recharge, for lack of a better word.  No matter how hard he tries, he’s unable to recreate that moment where his hands hit solid wood and he _mattered_.

Is Adam doomed to this? To not touch or be touched, to not sleep or dream? To possess the secrets of the universe, but have no one to share them with?

Worst of all, even as Adam learns more about his condition, stretches the limits of his understanding, he can’t figure out if it will ever end.  Can Adam die a second time, or will he still be floating through the halls of the Garrison long after everyone he knows has turned to dust?

***

It’s James Griffin who finally snaps Adam out of his fugue state.

Adam has never liked Griffin.  Teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but it’s an open secret at the Garrison that every generation has a wunderkind whom the faculty worship to the point of absurdity.  Shiro was theirs; Griffin is his.  The blatant favoritism alone might have wrinkled Adam’s brow, but the blame for that rests on the adults, not James.  No, Adam’s opinion of James Griffin soured because he used the privilege he was afforded irresponsibly.  Griffin was impatient with his classmates, ungrateful for his professors’ attention.  Whereas Shiro was embarrassed at his professors’ conduct, Griffin expected it and turned unpleasant when he didn’t receive it.  And to top it all off, Griffin was mean to Keith. 

Well.  Teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but Adam did anyways.

James Griffin had been chosen for the MFE program against Adam’s recommendation.  And now, here he is, fulfilling all of Adam’s worst predictions for him.  The navigation system in his fighter is faulty, and he’s griping and complaining at everyone within reach to fix it instead of looking for the solution himself.  Griffin is smart enough to solve it, Adam knows this.  He just doesn’t think it’s his job.

Adam lounges idly in an engineering computer, watching the shitshow unravel as today’s entertainment.  He’s got a bet running against himself to see how long it takes for Iverson to show up, and whose side he’ll take once he does.

The other members of the MFE have scattered to winds now that it’s clear they won’t run their drills anytime soon.   Rizavi and Leifsdottir left to the privacy of their dorms, but Ryan Kinkade has perched on a crane, far above the fray.  He’s scribbling something on a tablet, and Adam can’t resist taking a peek. He slips up into the tablet.

Kinkade is sketching, making long, feathery strokes with his stylus.  Adam watches in wonder as the scene slowly reveals itself: a small house on a beach, surrounded by palm trees.  Two old women and a boy stand on the beach, backs to the viewer as they face the water.  One woman rests her hand in the boy’s hair as she leans her head against the other woman’s shoulder.  Kinkade adds the finishing details and stares at his drawing for a long moment, before hitting delete and closing his eyes with a sigh.

Adam slinks back, ashamed.  Kinkade is just a child.   He should be at home on that beach with his family, not thrust onto the front lines of a war.  Griffin is a child too, and yet here Adam is, reveling in his misery like it’s a spectator sport.  Adam was a _teacher_ , for fuck’s sake.

Is a teacher.  You don’t stop being a teacher just because you’re not in a classroom, just like Sam didn’t stop being a scientist when the Galra held him captive.  Adam swore an oath to protect his students, to guide them and nurture them with all he had.  For a moment there, he had forgotten that oath.

 _I’m sorry, Takashi_ , he thinks. He reaches for Griffin’s fighter, realigns a few lines of corrupted code, and the lights in the cockpit blink on.

***

Adam spends the next three years watching over the Garrison.  A kind of technological guardian angel, he thinks.  Or a fairy godmother, Shiro would say, laughing.

By this point, Adam has tracked down every memory of Shiro stored in the Garrison’s memory banks.  Cheesy promotional video filmed for the Kerberos mission, his original admission application, a blurry home video of Shiro and Matt singing karaoke at the Holt’s Christmas party.

A lot of the pictures are of Adam, too.  They had spent much of their teenage years and beyond as _Adam-and-Shiro_ , inseparable parts of a whole.  Adam had known that breaking up with Shiro would sever that whole, but it’s taken him six years to understand he gave up so much more than that.  They had been _Adam-and-Shiro-and-Matt_ or _Adam-and-Shiro-and-Keith_ or _Adam-and-Shiro-and-twelve-homesick-officers-who-couldn’t-get-leave-on-Thanksgiving._   They had built themselves a family from scratch, carved a life full of laughter and love out of the bullshit they’d been handed – and Adam had lost it all, hadn’t even given it a second thought before turning his back on it.

So now, when Adam fuses together a frayed wire, absorbs the shockwaves of an accidental explosion, it isn’t just altruism.  He’s protecting his family, one spark of quintessence at a time.

The entire Garrison is in a holding pattern, Adam included – a war of attrition they’re losing, slowly but steadily.  Until, as sudden and unexpected as the first Galra attack, Katie Holt’s voice is heard over the intercom.  Voltron is here.

Adam watches the reunion from inside the quintessence field in Iverson’s watch.  He can’t bear to be corporeal for this moment – to face Shiro with hands he can’t hold, a voice he can’t hear.

The first sight of them is shocking, almost too much to bear.  Shiro’s hair has turned bright white, and he’s got a large gash of a scar across his face.  His left arm is gone, and a broken prosthetic hangs limply from the shoulder.  Keith would be almost unrecognizable if not for his unruly hair.  He looks older than he should be, with broad shoulders and a scar to rival Shiro’s.  Three years had not been long enough to prepare Adam to see the physical evidence of the horrors he knew they’d undergone.  He wants to wrap them up in his arms, hold them close, and erase the past six years from existence until they’re the bright, laughing boys Adam remembers.

They have no family to greet them but Iverson, and Adam is powerless to do anything but watch as Shiro’s face crumples when he realizes what this must mean.  

***

Iverson takes Shiro to the memorial wall.  “Adam,” Shiro whispers, touching the wall with light fingers, “I’m sorry.”  It’s such a Shiro thing to do that Adam wants to scream; only Takashi Shirogane would feel responsible for something that couldn’t possibly be his fault, that had happened galaxies away from where Shiro was.

Hours later, Shiro returns to the memorial wall alone.  Now that no one is watching him, he sits down on the bench heavily, lets his shoulders droop and his tears spill over.  “Fuck, Adam,” he says, and the pain in his voice makes Adam materialize without even consciously choosing to.  Shiro jerks, and for a wild second Adam thinks it’s because Shiro spotted him, but then Adam realizes it was the beginning of a sob.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Adam says softly, holding his hands tightly to his sides so he doesn’t try to touch Shiro.  “When Sam came back, told us all about your intergalactic miracle, that was supposed to be my second chance.  You and Keith would come back, and I could make it right.  Put our family back together.” Adam huffs softly.  “I love you, Takashi Shirogane, and I’m so sorry I made you think even for a second that I regretted that.”

Adam stays there by Shiro’s side for long minutes as Shiro breathes shakily.  Eventually, a pale-faced cadet walks carefully into the room.  “Sir? Princess Allura said she’d like to see you.”

***

When they turn the prosthetic on, Shiro screams.  Adam rushes into the arm’s circuits, frantically analyzing.  Sam’s power source simply isn’t strong enough to power the arm on its own.  Desperate for power, the arm is turning on Shiro, killing him in its need for more. Adam floods the arm with his own energy, trying to buffer Shiro from its attacks.  Shiro keeps screaming, and Adam starts to feel weak, fuzzy around the edges.

A calm, cool wave of power sweeps through the arm.  Adam absorbs strength from it gratefully, replenishing his nearly depleted essence.  _Balmera crystal,_ Adam recognizes.  The Altean princess sacrificed her crown to save Shiro’s life.   _And mine_ , Adam thinks wryly.  _For as much as this counts as a life._

***

Adam stays in Shiro’s arm after that.   It’s creepy as fuck, haunting your ex-fiancé, but Adam can feel a spark of quintessence every time Shiro’s heart beats.  He can’t bear to be anywhere else right now.

When the Galra capture the Paladins, Coran reveals he’s been wearing a fucking _black hole_ around his neck this whole time.  It slots into the Atlas’s power chamber like it belongs there, and Adam can feel the hum of power all around him as the ship flares to life.

Then Coran calls Shiro “captain,” and Adam has never been prouder.

During the battle, Adam races across the ship, rewiring blown-out circuits and repairing shield banks.  He can’t shrug off the feeling that he’s not alone amidst the Atlas’ quintessence field.  There’s something rumbling beneath the desks, some presence yearning to be set free.  The Castle of Lions was alive, Adam realizes, and now it’s been reborn.

Of course, because he’s Takashi Fucking Shirogane, he apparently decides that it’s not badass enough to captain a futuristic hybrid alien battleship, so he suits up for a solo mission infiltrating enemy command ship teeming with armed soldiers.  Adam barely has time to transfer himself back into Shiro’s arm before Shiro _literally launches himself into space_ , and if Shiro doesn’t die from this Adam is going to kill him.

When Sam warns Shiro, “I’m about to use your brain as a computer node,” Shiro just quips back, “it wouldn’t be the first time,” and it takes every ounce of Adam’s self-control not to explode and fry every piece of electrical equipment in a ten-mile radius.  Adam focuses on channeling Sam’s commands to the crystal with the least amount of spill-over damage to Shiro’s neural pathways.

The crystal explodes, and Shiro crashes to the ground.  _Come on, get up, get up, get up_ , Adam thinks furiously, searching the suit for damage.  After ten terrifying seconds of unconsciousness, Shiro staggers to his feet, but he barely has time to breathe before he’s spotted, and the next thing Adam knows, they’re engaged in hand-to-hand combat with an eight-foot-tall alien general.  Adam does all he can – he deflects energy from Sendak’s blasts away from Shiro, maintains the shields in the suit – but in the end, this is Shiro’s fight.

Or Keith’s fight, rather, because Adam’s favorite cadet launches himself out of a flying lion to stab Sendak in the chest.

***

Just in case Adam was under any apprehension Shiro might be given a fair shot in life, the universe sends a giant mech suit to Earth to pound the living daylights out of Voltron.  Shiro forces his way out of Atlas’ medbay – where he absolutely needs to be, based on the medical equipment’s readings – to the bridge of the Atlas.

The Atlas is no match for whatever the hell is attacking them.  _Please_ , Adam finds himself praying to the other spirit inhabiting the quintessence field.  _Protect him.  I love him._

Maybe it hears him, or maybe it recognizes Shiro from the days when he was a Paladin, or maybe it’s operating on a level beyond even Adam’s extradimensional understanding.  Whatever the reason, the Atlas glows blue as pure quintessence surges through its hull.  Engine parts rearrange themselves and cannons transform into blasters as the Atlas reinvents itself midair.  Adam feels a rush of exhilaration as the Atlas comes to life all around him.  Shiro’s mind is in here, too, both guiding and being guided by the Castle’s spirit.  Adam doesn’t know if Shiro can hear him, but he thinks _I love you, Takashi_ , just in case. 

The Atlas’ rebirth is just enough to even the odds, not win the day, so Adam watches from the bridge of the broken Atlas as the Lions crash into Earth.

***

Adam hovers by the edge of Shiro’s hospital bed.  “Is this every day for you?” Adam blurts out in frustration.  “Like, does this shit ever _end_?  Because I don’t know about you, but I thought that fight was over about four times before it actually was.  Do you ever get a break? Speaking of which, you should be taking a break right fucking now, Takashi.”

Shiro never looks up once from his reading, apparently oblivious to his ex’s ghost yelling in his presence.  Shiro’s tasked himself with compiling the status reports flooding in from all over the world.  Thanks to the power vacuum inevitably left by genocide, Shiro, Iverson, Coran, and Sam have somehow forged an informal leadership team to put Earth back to rights.  In Adam’s opinion, the first order of business should be setting up _formal_ leadership so Shiro might be able to rest. 

(This is a delusion, Adam knows.  Shiro has selflessness bred into his bones.  If there’s a problem out there somewhere, Shiro’s gonna throw himself in the middle of it.)

There’s a knock on the door, and Dr. Dhawan enters.  “Hey, Doc!” Shiro says, looking up from his reading.  “Here to spring me?”

She sighs with a tired smile.  “Captain Shirogane, if I could keep you here on bedrest for a week, believe me, I would.  However, your injuries are healing quite nicely, so I have no choice but to let you go and pray you take care of yourself.”  Shiro lets out a whoop and begins to swing himself out of bed, but Dr. Dhawan throws up a hand to stop him.  “There’s something I need to talk to you about, first.” 

She rolls up a chair and sits next to Shiro, eyes serious.  “Part of why we’ve kept you here for observation is we wanted to understand the effects the cloning process took on your body.  It would appear that – Haggar, that was her name, right? – Haggar didn’t strictly duplicate your DNA.  She changed key sequences to suit her purposes.  We don’t know the full ramifications just yet, and we probably won’t for decades, but –”

“Decades?” Shiro interrupts, eyes sharp.  “Doc, I don’t have decades.”

“Captain, she replaced the mutated genes responsible for your condition.  It’s more than a cure; this body never had Vigil’s degenerative myopathy .  And, according to everything we know, it never will.”

“Oh,” Shiro breathes, looking at his hands.

“I’m going to put a treatment recommendation in your file that you meet with one of our counselors.  This isn’t like my other orders, so please, don’t blow this one off.  This is going to take some time to process, but, Takashi….” She gives him a shaky smile.  “You have decades.”

***

Adam chooses to be corporeal more often, now that Shiro is around.  There’s something deeply comforting about being in Shiro’s presence, and Adam knows from the way the Paladins always perk up when Shiro visits their hospital rooms that he’s not alone in feeling that way. 

Shiro had gone to Kerberos with one teenager under his protection.  He’d come back with five.  Adam is pretty sure Lance is Shiro’s favorite.  It could be for any number of reasons – for pure egalitarianism, as everyone else is already somebody’s favorite; because the kid’s penchant for putting his foot in his mouth is remarkably like a preteen Matt; or the steely determination behind Lance’s eyes, that says he may not have been born the best, but he won’t stop hustling until he is.   

Katie – _Pidge,_ Adam reminds himself – is a marvel.  She’s like if Matt and Shiro had a test tube baby, and then that baby had Benjamin Button Syndrome so it’s an old man in a teenager’s body.  With her hair cut short, she looks so terrifyingly like Matt that Adam spends a good hour in the Garrison’s archives confirming his suspicions that Pidge purposefully hacked the system to ensure that Cadet Gunderson never crossed paths with Professor Wiesenthal.

Adam tells Shiro this, even though he knows it’s pointless.  Talking to Shiro makes Adam feel less lonely, like he can pretend just for a moment it’s six years earlier, and they’re discussing lesson plans over dinner.  He’s starting to think there’s something to all the spiritual brouhaha about putting your intentions out into the universe, because Shiro has a tendency to fix the problems Adam brings up.  One day, as Shiro is inspecting repairs to the MFE fighters, Adam asks, “Can you reach out to Noemi?  Like, I know all the reports say she’s fine, but still.  I worry about her.”  And even though Shiro can’t hear him, the next day he writes Adam’s sister a letter, and soon he receives one back, complete with photos of baby Eli, born during the siege. 

It’s a strange life, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad one.  Shiro is alive and healthier than he’s ever been; Keith is safe and confident, with a family who loves him.  It’s more than Adam had ever dared hoped for.

***

Shiro sits next to Hunk’s hospital bed as Adam hovers behind him, listening to him read aloud a letter from his alien penpal, Shay.  Shay is part of the team leading the effort to construct the wormhole that will connect Earth to the rest of the Voltron Coalition.  She also, apparently, is the inventor of her galaxy’s first selfie stick, and proudly sent Hunk the fruits of her labor.

“Oh man,” Hunk laughs, tilting the screen towards Shiro.  “Check this one out.”   Shay had attached a picture of Matt dabbing in front of the partially-constructed wormhole.

“Matt has a ponytail now?” Shiro murmurs, smirking.

“Is that a ponytail?” Adam laughs. “I thought it was a dead rat hanging off his head.”

Shiro snorts, then freezes.  Adam freezes too.  “Shiro,” Adam whispers, “Takashi, did you hear me?”

Shiro shakes his head, mute, staring resolutely at the screen.

“Takashi, have you heard me this whole time? Can you,” Adam’s voice breaks, “can you _see_ me?”

Shiro glances reflexively out of the corner of his eye then jerks back like he’s been stung.

“Oh my god.”  Adam’s thoughts are racing with the implications.  “Oh my god, _Takashi._ ”

Shiro scrambles out of his chair.  “I gotta go,” he stammers over his shoulder, leaving Hunk startled and confused behind him.

“Oh no you don’t.” Adam desperately chases after Shiro, phasing through walls to keep up. “Takashi Shirogane, I am not letting you go this time.”

Shiro runs until he bursts into a workroom where Coran and Sam are huddled over some piece of Altean tech.  “Help me,” he gasps out.  “I’m going crazy.”

“You’re not,” Adam says firmly over Coran’s gasp. “You’re not, I’m real, I promise.”

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks, moving forward to grasp Shiro’s arm.

“My mind is playing tricks on me.  I keep seeing...impossible things.”

“I’m here,” Adam pleads.  “I’m here.”

“Are you sure they're not real?” Coran raises an eyebrow.

“Thank you!”  Adam points to Coran.  “I’m real!”

“What are you seeing, Shiro?”  Sam asks.

“Adam.”  Shiro’s voice breaks.  “I keep seeing Adam.  But he’s dead, right? Sam?”

Sam nods sadly.  “He died three years ago, Shiro.  I saw it myself.”

“This is your fault!”  Adam yells at Sam.  “If you weren’t fucking around with alien tech and sticking Galra space crystals in every fucking orifice you can find on a healing pod, I would actually be dead right now.”

Shiro’s face pales.  “Sam,” he says shakily, “after the first Galra attack, did you...connect any Galra technology to an Altean healing pod? A quintessence crystal, maybe?”

Sam raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah, I did,” Sam says slowly, confused.  “Why? Did you read about it in my notes?”

Shiro makes eye contact with Adam, his eyes wide and scared, before wrenching his gaze away.  “No,” Shiro swallows.  “Adam just told me.”

“Quiznak,” Coran breathes softly. 

“He can’t be real,” Shiro insists.  “I’m...I’m just going crazy.”

“King Alfor recreated himself by storing his memories in the Castle of Lions,” Coran says gently.  “You yourself had your soul preserved by the consciousness of the Black Lion.  Who is to say this is impossible?”

“How though?” Sam asks. “Those both involved complex artificial intelligences and a big helping of magic.  That crystal was tiny, barely a shard.”

“Galra technology is engineered to retain and exploit quintessence as efficiently as possible. I know their ships convert the life force of their pilots should they —”

“ _Quiznak_ ,” Sam spits out, horrified.  “Are you telling me there could be dozens of Galra ghosts floating around?”

“Of course not,” Coran says impatiently.  “But the healing pod’s matrix approaches quintessence entirely differently.  It’s possible...”

With every word they say, Shiro sinks further and further into himself.  “Takashi,” Adam murmurs, but when he tries to press closer Shiro pulls away.  “Hey guys,” Adam says, turning towards the two arguing men, “can we cool it on the techno-babble? It’s freaking Shiro out.”

“But you said combining Galra purple quintessence with the Castle AI corrupted Alfor’s programming,” Sam presses.  “So even if this presence does exist, how do we know it’s benevolent?”

Shiro sucks in a breath.

Adam turns to Sam and Coran.  “Really, please, he’s freaking out.”

“Hmm,” Coran strokes his mustache.  “Even if we find a way to analyze the presence, we have no baseline to determine whether it’s fully Adam, or even if it’s truly Adam at all —”

“ _Hey!”_ Adam yells in frustration.  “ _Shut the fuck up!”_

Sparks fly as every screen in the room flashes white briefly and shuts off.  Coran and Sam fall silent, looking around them.

“It’s okay,” Adam says softly, turning to Shiro.  “It’s me.  Look at me.  You know it’s me.”

Shiro takes a hollow breath, and says hoarsely,  “Coran’s right.  You could be anything.”

“I’m me.  Ask me anything. Something only I would know.”

“If you’re all in my head,” Shiro says, still not looking at Adam, “then you’d already know the answer.”

Adam huffs out a breath in frustration, even as he feels hopelessly fond.  “Sam, then.  I’ll tell you something Sam has done long after I’m supposed to be dead.”

“That wouldn’t prove it’s you.”

Adam closes his eyes.  “Ask Keith,” he says, hating every word that comes out of his mouth.  “Ask Keith what the last words he ever said to me were.”

Keith comes as soon as Shiro calls, whipping into the workroom dangerously fast for someone on crutches.  “What’s wrong?” he asks, squinting suspiciously at Coran and Sam.

Shiro squares his shoulders.  “I need you to tell me the last thing you ever said to Adam.”

Keith’s eyes grow wide.  “Why?”

“We’ll be outside,” Sam says gently, placing a hand on Coran’s shoulder to lead him out.

“I’m testing a hypothesis,” Shiro says, evasive.

“What’s wrong?” Keith repeats.  “I don’t wanna do this if…I was a moody teenager, Shiro.  It wasn’t very nice.”

“It’s okay, Keith,” Adam smiles sadly.  “I earned it.”

“You’re still a moody teenager,” Shiro says, and Keith snorts despite the heaviness in the air. “I’ll tell you after,” Shiro promises.  “Just, count to ten, then say it.”

In the silence, Adam speaks. “‘The only good thing about this shitshow is that Shiro isn’t here to see the petty bitch you’ve become.’”

Keith echoes him awkwardly a moment later.

“He also flipped me off,” Adam adds unnecessarily.

“Jesus Christ,” Shiro breathes.

“I was grieving!” Keith protests defensively.  “I didn’t mean –”

“Keith, I see Adam’s ghost.  And I think you just proved he’s real.”

Keith’s eyes grow impossibly wide.  “ _What_ ,” he whispers.

***

They call a group meeting in the medical wing, for lack of a better plan: the Paladins, the Holts, the Alteans, and Iverson.  Shiro tells them the whole story – how he had first spotted Adam at the memorial the day they returned to Earth, how he had denied Adam’s presence until he couldn’t anymore.  After, Adam tells them his story, pausing frequently so Shiro can repeat his words.

The Paladins take the news much more easily than Adam would have guessed.  They must be used to bizarre shit happening all the time, because their conversation is practical, business-like. 

After an hour of discussion full of techno-babble that would have flown over Adam’s head three years ago, they have a working hypothesis.  The purple quintessence crystal in the ship Adam crashed into absorbed Adam’s lifeforce as he died, intending to convert it into fuel.  When Sam plugged the crystal into the healing pod, the pod recognized Adam as the remnants of a living being and tried to revive him.  However, because it was dangerously low on power, it only managed to restore Adam’s consciousness before breaking down.

“So,” Sam says slowly, “Adam is dead, technically speaking.”

“ _Mostly_ dead,” Lance quips in a horrific accent.  When everyone stares at him, he shrugs defensively.  “What? It’s a cult classic.  Fine, I call dibs on next movie night.”

“We don’t have movie nights,” Pidge says.

Adam turns to Shiro.  “And that one is your favorite?” he asks, skeptically.

Shiro shakes his head.  “Trust me, when the only thing stopping you from shitting your pants in fear is this guy’s jokes, you’ll be thankful.”

Lance’s face falls.  “Oh no, does Adam not like my jokes? What did he say?”

“Oh, Jesus, he looks like a kicked puppy.  Shiro, tell him I think he’s funny. Please!”

“He likes your jokes, Lance.”

Keith looks at Shiro with an odd expression on his face. “It’s like he’s here,” he says softly, and the room falls into a heavy silence.

Adam’s heart breaks for the ninth time today.  “I am here. I’m sorry I wasn’t, before.”

Shiro clears his throat.  “He says –”

“No,” Keith interrupts. “I can’t – I can’t do this.”  He walks out the door.

“Shiro,” Allura says, breaking the silence, “are you confident that Adam’s spirit presents no danger to us?”

Shiro looks at Adam.  “Yeah,” he says.

“Then I suggest we all retire for the night.  This has been…emotional, to say the least.  I think it would serve us all well to take some time to process this.  We can regroup in the morning.”

Everyone files out, until just Shiro and Adam are left.  “What happened?” Shiro asks, not looking at Adam.  “After I disappeared, I mean.”

Adam smiles sadly.  “Keith…he took the news very hard.  He was determined to find out the truth of the Kerberos mission.  He got caught sneaking into Iverson’s office after hours.”  Shiro snorts.  “Iverson wanted to expel him immediately, but I convinced him to hold off on a decision until the morning.  I took Keith to our home, gave him dinner.  He kept going on and on about how the reports of pilot error were bullshit.”

Adam takes a deep breath.  “I told him I believed them.”  Shiro looks up in shock. Adam meets his eyes steadily, apologetically.  “The doctors couldn’t guarantee that long-term exposure to the conditions of deep space wouldn’t accelerate your condition.  My theory was that the worst-case scenario came true.  Your symptoms worsened, and you had a muscle spasm behind the pilot’s chair.  When I told Keith this, he shouted those words at me and ran away.  I never saw him again.”  Adam blinks rapidly, trying to wipe away the pressure of tears that won’t ever spill.  “That boy had one person left on this planet, and I made him feel like he couldn’t trust me.  I failed him, Shiro.”

Shiro looks like he’s about to say something, but Adam can’t bear to hear it, whether it’s absolution or condemnation.  He melts away, leaving Shiro alone.

***

Shiro and Adam’s apartment had been cannibalized long ago to house refugee families escaping the Galra.  Shiro, due to his status, had been given a single in the barracks, which is frankly better than most people at the Garrison received.  The morning after Adam’s revelation, Shiro’s about to leave for breakfast when he pauses.

“Adam?” He calls.  “Are you here?”

Almost guiltily, Adam materializes out from Shiro’s laptop.  “Morning.”

“So even when you’re not _here_ you’re still…” Shiro waves a vague hand around.  “Here.  Why?”

“I live in energy fields, Shiro.  It’s actually easier for me to be inside technology like a laptop than —”

“No, I mean…” Shiro runs a frustrated hand through his hair.  “Why are you _here_? Instead of in engineering, or the launch bay?”

Adam wants to respond that he does actually spend quite a lot of time in engineering or the launch bay, but that’s not what Shiro is asking.  “You know why, Takashi,” Adam says softly. 

Shiro opens his mouth to speak, but then shuts it and walks briskly out the door, closing it behind him.  Adam phases through it, following.

A series of mini-emergencies pops up that consumes all of Shiro and Adam’s attention, which turns out to be a lucky thing.  There’s no time for awkward philosophical questions, so they build a routine almost by default.  By the end of the day, Coran is coming by to ask Shiro things like, “Does Adam know why the particle field generator has stalled?” or “Can Adam double check the welding on the new MFE part?” It’s not so much ignoring the elephant in the room as it is acknowledging the elephant and offering it peanuts without questioning why it’s there.

Their uneasy detente lasts until dinner.  “Why can only Shiro see him, though?” Pidge asks.  Lance and Hunk start coughing furiously, which everyone politely ignores.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Allura says.  “I believe the answer may lie in the time Shiro himself spent as a disembodied consciousness sheltered in the Black Lion.  We still don’t know the full extent of how that time may have impacted his perception of the world.”

“So like, what? Shiro’s got ESP now?” Keith asks, skeptically.

“Shiro was able to communicate with me through the Lions,” Lance says with a raised eyebrow.  “Makes sense he’d keep some of that.”

“Yeah but how much did he keep?” Adam asks, but only Shiro looks at him.  “I mean it, Shiro.  We’ve got proof that this experience fucked with your mind in at least one way.  Who’s to say there aren’t a million other ways you got fucked over, too?  We need to investigate that.”

Shiro just shakes his head and turns back towards the group.  “What’s the progress on our side of the wormhole?” He asks, and successfully turns the conversation towards logistics for the rest of the evening.

Adam waits until Shiro has retired to his dorm room for the night before turning on him.  “When Sam asked to turn your brain into a computer node during the fight with Sendak, you said, ‘wouldn’t be the first time,’” Adam says quietly.  “Exactly how many times has someone messed with your brain, Takashi?”

“Fuck, you were there for that?”

“Takashi.”

“I guess I should say ‘thank you,’ you’re probably the reason the Atlas held out as long as it did.” He starts.  “Wait, you can help us figure out just what the hell happened to it, can’t you?”

“Takashi,” Adam repeats patiently, and waits.

Shiro sighs.  “A lot, okay.  People fucked with my brain a lot.”

“Tell me.”

“Why? I’m sure you’ve read every single document on the subject.”

“Tell me anyways.”

He does.  Once Shiro starts, he can’t stop.  It spills out of him, chaotic and jumbled.  He starts with their capture on Kerberos, only to jump forward several years to his first meeting with Haggar.  Talking about Haggar makes him think of Zarkon, and the terror he felt confronting the Galra leader with only his mind. 

Shiro talks for hours.  He eventually falls asleep mid-sentence, still on top of his covers.  Adam keeps watch the whole night.

***

Everyone adjusts to Adam’s existence fairly quickly, except for Keith.  He’s still squirrely when he thinks Adam is in the room, and spends most of his time alone, murmuring quietly with his wolf.  Adam does his best to make himself scarce around Keith and Shiro — practically the only time Adam is willing to leave Shiro’s side.

After the third time in one day that Keith hobbles into a room and then abruptly hobbles out when he sees Shiro talking to thin air, Adam sighs.  “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”

“He’s already forgiven you,” Shiro says, shaking his head.  “He just needs to forgive himself now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, Wiesenthal.  When I first asked Keith about his year living in the desert, he told me he had a suspiciously easy time of it.  You don’t honestly think Keith believed it was coincidence that the Garrison’s storage units were unlocked every time he went raiding for provisions, do you?  Or that his hoverbike’s fuel efficiency suddenly skyrocketed?” 

“Oh,” Adam says stupidly.

“‘Oh,’” Shiro mocks.  “He stopped being angry at you years ago, Adam.  Now he feels guilty, like he let you down.”

“That’s stupid,” Adam erupts.  “He was a kid! He was hurting and scared.  It’s not his fault his world crumbled all around him.  He was doing the best he could.”

Shiro pauses, an odd expression on his face.  “Yeah,” he says slowly, “he was, wasn’t he?”

Adam gets the feeling he’s missing something.  “Takashi?”

Shiro shakes his head and stands up abruptly.  “I can’t do this,” he says, looking away.  “I’m sorry I...I think I need to be alone right now.”  He walks out of the room, leaving Adam behind, confused.

***

Unfortunately, since Shiro is the only person who can perceive when Adam is in the room, they don’t have enough time apart that ex-fiances probably should.  Adam resolves to stay out of Shiro’s bedroom at night, though he only partly succeeds.  He resolves to stay out of Shiro’s bedroom while he’s awake, and never be corporeal, which works a lot better.

“How good is Adam’s control?” Pidge asks while Adam and Shiro are visiting her in medical.  “Because if even if it’s just a matter of flashing a light bulb once for yes and two for no, we could get a lot done without you in the middle, Shiro.”

“I work best on the most infinitesimal scales,” Adam says.  “The bigger something is, the harder it is for me to control it, even when it’s a burst of energy like a lightbulb.  I’ve only been able to make things spark or flash a couple of times, when I was particularly emotional.”

When Shiro repeats this to her, she nods.  “Maybe this is why you can’t touch things.  There’s not really a bigger scale than moving matter around.  Hey,” she says, a glint in her eye, “have you ever tried touching Shiro?”

“Er, no,” Shiro says quickly.  “What would be the point? There’s nothing special about me physically.”

“Your ears are perfectly normal, aren’t they? Your eyes, too? And yet, here we are.”  At Shiro’s skeptical look, she rolls her eyes.  “I biohacked a planet, my dudes, but sure, let’s accept your belief about psycho-physiological limitations.”

“I gotta go, there’s something in engineering I want to check out,” Adam says quickly, and disappears before Shiro can react.

Hours later, Shiro pokes his head into Sam’s spare workroom.  “Hey, Adam, you here?” he calls.

Adam considers ignoring him, but that might be a breach of trust.  He materializes out of a broken battery pack.  “Hey.”

Shiro steps fully into the room.  “So,” he starts awkwardly, “what was that back there?”

“I guess I just really didn’t want to get into that.”

“Why?”

Adam closes his eyes.  “I haven’t touched another person for three years, Shiro, it’s a weird thing to think about.” _And I haven’t touched you for six._

Shiro steps closer.  “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Adam says automatically, before he realizes what Shiro is asking.  “Wait, shit, can I change my answer?”

Shiro laughs, and the tension in the room eases.  “It’s your choice, Adam,” he says.  “You let me know.”

In the end, it doesn’t end up being much of a choice at all.  A couple nights later, Adam is watching Shiro sleep like a creeper, even though he’d promised himself tonight would be the night he stops.  Shiro starts tossing and turning in his sleep, grunting to himself.  His movements become agitated, and after several seconds Adam realizes Shiro can’t wake himself up. 

He emerges into Shiro’s room.  “Takashi?” He whispers quietly, then more firmly.

Shiro moans louder, but he still doesn’t wake.

“Hey, Takashi, it’s okay,” Adam croons, moving closer and closer to the bed.  “You’re okay, wake up for me now, okay?  It’s time to wake up, Takashi.”

Shiro cries out, and Adam can’t help it, he moves to place a hand on Shiro’s shoulder.

They connect.  An electric shock passes through Adam’s hand, and he pulls back reflexively.  He can still feel Shiro under his palm, warm and solid. 

The shock wakes Shiro up from his nightmare.  His eyes blink wildly until they focus on Adam.  “It’s okay,” Adam says softly.  “You’re safe, Takashi.  It was just a dream.  You’re safe.”

Shiro breathes heavily but doesn’t say anything.  After a moment, Adam smiles awkwardly.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll just —”

Shiro reaches out and grabs his wrist.  It sends another shock through them, and Shiro drops his hand just as quickly.  “Stay?” he croaks out.  “Please?”

Adam nods and doesn’t move from Shiro’s bedside until morning.

***

They complete work on the wormhole.  Matt is its first traveler, storming into the Garrison with all the boisterousness Adam remembers.  When he first sees Shiro, he grabs his face roughly with both hands and kisses him loudly on the cheek.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shiro laughs, batting him away.  “Would you believe when this guy first saw me on the Castle of Lions, he fucking saluted and called me ‘sir’?”

“Fuck off, Shiro, I was nervous! I just found out you and my baby sister were _Voltron,_ and I just met a _princess_ and…were you, uh, talking to Adam right now?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Shiro shrugs and looks at Adam, who gives a halfhearted wave.  “He says hello.”

“Hi Adam!” Matt says, overbright.  “It’s really good to…well, um, not _see_ you, but um, to talk – oh, fuck, um, it’s good to…be in your presence? Again? Or, wait –”

“Jesus, Matthew, don’t hurt yourself,” Adam says, and Shiro laughs.  Matt chuckles gamely, even though he has no idea what Adam just said.

A couple days later, Matt knocks on Shiro’s door.  He’s got that constipated look on his face he gets when he’s trying to act calm but is failing at it.  “Hey, bud.  Is Adam in here with you?”

Shiro raises an eyebrow.  “Yeah, why?”

“Cool, cool cool cool.  Can you, uh, leave us alone?”

Shiro looks from Matt to Adam and back again.  “Me?”

“Yeah.  I wanna talk to Adam.”

“You know he can’t –”

“I know.  Just.  Please?”

With a bemused look on his face, Shiro stands up and walks out, closing the door behind him.

“So,” Matt coughs. “I don’t quite know how to give a ghost the shovel talk, but I’m prepared to do it.”

“Oh my god,” Adam groans, realizing he is powerless to stop whatever this trainwreck is.

“It’s just…you know I love you, right? I love you so much, dude, and I’m so freaking happy you’re not dead.  But those last two weeks before the Kerberos mission, they _sucked_.  Everyone was miserable.  My _mom_ was miserable, Adam, she cried when she heard you broke up.  And like, I know you’re codependent right now because of the whole ‘only Shiro can see me’ thing, but just, like, think about how deep you’re getting into this before it’s too late.  Because if you’re not in this for the ‘til undeath do us part’ bit, then…I honestly don’t know if Shiro’s heart can take another beating like that.  And I sure as heck know mine can’t.”  He takes a deep, resolute breath, and then deflates.  “So, yeah.  That’s what I came here to say.”

“I love you, Matt,” Adam says.  Even though he can’t hear it, it still feels important to say.

Matt clucks awkwardly.  “Well.  Good talk.  See you soon – shit I mean…uh…bye, Adam.”  He leaves.

Adam knows he’s playing with fire.  He’d known it the day he saw Shiro step onto Garrison soil, white-haired and broken but still so goddamn handsome it hurts to look at him sometimes.  This is the life he signed on for: protecting Shiro but always staying one step removed, saving his family but never being a part of it.  And if he wants something more, then tough, because this is what he gets, and he’s lucky to have it.

It literally had never occurred to him until just this moment that Shiro might want more too.

***

“Romelle and I have an announcement,” Allura says, during what they’ve taken to calling “family dinner.” She sounds excited, but slightly nervous.  “After a lot of research, we have managed to repair the healing pod.”  Everyone gathered at the table lets out a cheer.  “In addition, we were able to confirm why the healing pod malfunctioned and, well, created you, Adam.”

Adam stiffens, and Shiro throws him a quick glance.

“Based on this knowledge, we believe that we can program the healing pod to take a sample of your DNA and, together with your quintessence consciousness, create a new you.  Adam Wiesenthal, in the flesh.”  She smiles excitedly.

Everyone looks at Shiro, who looks at Adam.

“Would that,” Adam’s throat works, “make me normal?”

Shiro relays the question.

“It would revert you to the same state you were in before Galra attack.  Is that what you mean?”

“No, I mean, quintessence.  Would I still be able to manipulate quintessence, diagnose problems, things like that?”

Shiro narrows his eyes.  “Why?” He asks Adam.

“Just ask the question.”

Shiro repeats Adam’s words.

“Most likely, no,” Allura says apologetically.  “Your instinctive sense of energy and how to manipulate it comes from the state of your consciousness.  Once your mind is three-dimensional again, you’ll only be able to think in three dimensions.  This does not have to be the case – Shiro, after all, can perceive you because of his time embedded in the Black Lion’s consciousness – but even if you do experience after-effects, they won’t be anything like your capabilities now.”

“Okay.”  Adam nods slowly.  “Then…I thank you for your generosity, Highness, but I’m going to decline.”

“What?” Shiro whips his head around.  “Why?”

“Shiro, will you tell her?”

“But why?”

Adam sighs.  “The Galra are still out there.  Until Voltron can establish peace in the galaxy, Earth is still vulnerable.  I’m needed, just as I am.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

“Will you just tell her, for god’s sake?”

“No.”

“Shiro –”

“Adam and I need a moment alone,” Shiro says, standing.  “We’ll be out in the hall.”

“No, we won’t.  I’m talking to Allura.”  But Shiro keeps walking out the door.

Adam follows begrudgingly, but he phases through the wall instead of using the door just because he knows it freaks Shiro out.  “What the fuck, Shiro?”

Shiro crosses his arms.  “What are you doing, Adam?”

“What I need to.  What are you doing, Shiro?”

“I won’t let you do this to yourself.”

“That’s not your decision to make!”

“The fuck it isn’t.  I’d like to see you try without me as translator.”

Adam feels like he’s been slapped.  “You wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Cruel?” Shiro runs his hand through his hair.  “I’m trying to save your life!”

“And I’m trying to save dozens! Hundreds, even.”

“They don’t need you.  We’ve got two ten-thousand year old Alteans now, Adam.”

“Neither of whom can work quintessence as fast as I can, and you know it.” Adam scrubs a hand over his face.  “Look, Takashi, I’m sorry, but –”

“Don’t you dare,” Shiro growls, low and dangerous in his throat.  Adam looks up in surprise.  “Don’t you dare say sorry one more goddamn time.  I’m so fucking tired of you apologizing and sacrificing for things that aren’t even your fault anyways.”

“Takashi –”

“No, it’s my fucking fault, alright?  You were right! You were right the whole time.”  Shiro breathes heavily, trying to calm himself down.  “I signed up for the Kerberos mission so you wouldn’t have to see me die.” Adam gasps softly, and Shiro’s mouth quirks up into a deprecating smile.  “That was always my plan.  I was gonna push myself, as hard as I could, until one day my heart gave out.  And you’d never have to go through what my mom did, sitting in a creaky hospital chair and watching my dad waste away.

“I should’ve gone after you that day.  I shouldn’t have acted like that was the end of the discussion when it so clearly was not.  But I felt relieved.  I thought it was good for you.  I thought I’d come back in six months and you’d have found somebody else, someone with a healthy body who would stick around long enough to raise kids with you, grow old with you.  I thought you deserved better than me, so I let you walk away.” Shiro laughs, tears in his eyes.  “I let you walk away, Adam, how could I do that? How could I ever let you think I didn’t need you?  I just…I’m sorry, Adam. I’m so, so sorry. I –”

“Shut up,” Adam whispers, moving close.  “Shut up, shut up, shut up –”

They reach for each other at the same time.  Sparks fly through Adam as he wraps his arms around Shiro and holds him close, burying his face in Shiro’s neck.  “I love you,” Shiro whispers into Adam’s hair.  “I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  We get a second chance at this thing — or, fuck, it’s a fourth chance at this point.  We can do this, Adam.  We can choose to be happy.”

“Yeah,” Adam says.  “Let’s choose to be happy,”

***

Adam feels flat.  He tries stretching himself out to find the energy pathways close to him, but he’s stuck in only one shape. Annoyed, he tries fighting it, only to snap back into place.

Then he remembers _why,_ and opens his eyes.

Allura is standing in front of him, her large eyes worried.  Hovering right behind her is Shiro.  Their eyes meet, and Adam’s heart begins beating wildly.  “Hi,” he tries to say, and his voice cracks.

Someone stifles a snort, and Adam looks around.  Everyone is there — Allura and Coran and Romelle, Lance and Veronica, Hunk and Shay, Keith and Krolia and the wolf, Matt and Pidge and Sam and Colleen.  His own little family, here to welcome him home.

“Fuck off,” Adam mutters, and everyone laughs.  Allura and Shiro help him into a chair, where he sits gratefully.  When Shiro straightens, Adam grabs his hand and prevents him from going too far.  There’s no jolt of power this time, just a warm, comforting palm in his.  It's intoxicating.

“It’s really good to see you, son,” Sam says warmly. 

“It’s good to be seen,” Adam says, and everyone laughs again.

“How are you feeling?” Shiro asks. 

“Um, sore.  But in a good way.”

“Hungry?” Hunk raises his eyebrows.

“No, I don’t think — oh.” Adam’s stomach rumbles audibly.  “Yeah, actually, I’m very hungry.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much a universal experience,” Hunk says happily.  “So we decided to make a feast! A little welcome back celebration to you and your stomach.  We got cheese tamales because Shiro said those were your favorites, tofu fried rice —”

“Frito pies,” Keith calls out.

“Frito pies,” Hunk echoes, “both kosher and non-kosher —”

“Garlic knots!” Lance adds.

“Peanut butter pie!” Pidge calls out.

“And food goo,” Hunk finishes, “because until agriculture is stabilized our diet is still pretty much 80% food goo.  You’re welcome!”

Adam laughs.  “Thanks, guys.  Really, thank you.”

Shiro squeezes his hand, and Adam looks up into his eyes.  He must lose track of time, because the next thing he knows Colleen is clapping her hands together and saying, “Well! Let’s go eat!” and shoving people out the door.  It takes both Allura and Lance to almost bodily drag Coran out of the room before he gets the picture, and then Shiro and Adam are alone.

“Well,” Shiro says with a breathy laugh, “that was —”

Adam surges up out of his chair and kisses Shiro.   Shiro’s arm fits perfectly around his waist, and for a second they can believe that no time at all has passed since their last kiss. 

After a breathless moment, they break apart. “Hi,” Shiro whispers, resting his forehead against Adam’s.

“Hi,” Adam whispers back.

“We should go join the others.”

“Yeah,” Adam agrees, reaching up to kiss Shiro again.

Adam’s stomach grumbles and he pulls away.  “Okay, maybe it is actually time to go.”

Shiro doesn’t let him go.  “After you.”

Adam disentangles himself from Shiro and walks straight into a wall. Shiro nearly falls over laughing.  “Shut up,” Adam grouses, touching a hand gingerly to his face.  “I think I broke my nose.”

“No, you didn’t,” Shiro laughs.  “Don’t be such a baby, here.”  He bats Adam’s hand away and holds Adam’s chin, inspecting his face closely.  “You’re fine.  Just remember you can’t walk through walls anymore.”

Adam puts a hand over Shiro’s, threading their fingers together.  “Hey,” he says softly.  “Will you marry me?”

Shiro rolls his eyes.  “Pretty sure we established this already, Wiesenthal.”

“Right now.  Takashi, will you marry me right now?” Shiro’s eyes widen.  “Look, we got all our friends and family right here.  We got a feast and a party.  What else do we need?”

“A justice of the peace?”

“Hey, Coran,” Adam calls. 

Coran pops his head in the door, because of course at least four of them are lingering right outside, listening in on everything.   “Yes?”

“You ever marry people back on Altea?”

“Why yes, Lieutenant Wiesenthal.  I was honored throughout my long life to have one wife and two husba—oh. Yes.  I performed seventy-two marriage ceremonies on Altea.”

Adam grins at Shiro.  “So? What about it, Shirogane?”

Shiro studies him for a long moment.  “Adam Moises Wiesenthal Vega, will you marry me?”

Adam’s heart feels like it could burst with happiness.  “Takashi Shirogane, yes I will.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [ my favorite 1d song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QpPMbzVqic).
> 
> Working title was "i hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums" because I'm a sick fuck who thinks that's funny.
> 
> All my love and eternal gratitude to Nicole, who got me into this stupid show and then beta-d this at midnight instead of doing her grad school homework.
> 
> ~~also i promise finding nemo is not abandoned it's just that law school sucked all the creativity out my brain but i'm working on it now that i've graduated, i promise it's gonna get finished~~


End file.
